Create Bittensor Wallet and store your $TAO

Open Google Chrome (or another browser that supports Chrome Extensions) and click on the "Add to Chrome" button.

Click here to go directly to the "Extension" page: Chrome Extension for Bittensor Wallet

After adding the extension to Chrome, navigate to the "Extensions" button located on the right next to your search bar. When opening the Bittensor Wallet Extension for the first time, you will see a screen where you can simply click "Accept."

After accepting the extension's 'Terms of Service,' you can either create or import your Bittensor Wallet. For this guide, we will go through the steps of creating the wallet by clicking on the "+" symbol.

A new tab will open from the extension, displaying two key pieces of information generated by the extension:

• Wallet Address: A 48-hexadecimal character string that usually starts with a '5.' This address is required to send/receive $TAO using your wallet.
• Mnemonic Seed: Mnemonic Seed: A list of 12 generated words in a specific order. This list, also known as a mnemonic or seed phrase, is highly critical and secret information.

After safely storing the mnemonic/seed phrase, click "Next Step." You will be asked to provide 2 random words from the seed phrase to ensure that you have reliably stored the list.

Before using your wallet, you need to provide the following information:

• Wallet Name: A local description of your wallet, which is not persistent but useful if you have multiple wallets in the extension.
• Password: A local password used to sign all transactions (e.g., staking , unstaking, withdrawals). This password is not persistent across devices.

After providing the required information, click on "Create Account." You may close the tab and click on the extension again. This time, you will be able to see the balance of your newly created wallet. From now on, you can freely use your wallet for any transactions.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your Bittensor wallet using the Extension.

First, go to the 'Play Store' or 'App Store' and search for "Nova Wallet."

After finding the correct app (as shown above), install it. Then, you can begin creating your wallet.

Once opened, you will find four options to choose from:

• Create a new Wallet: Choose this option to create your wallet.
• Import Wallet: If you already have a wallet, you can import it here using the mnemonic/seed phrase .
• Connect Hardware Wallet: This procedure will be explained further in the 'Cold-Storage' section.
• Add Watch-Only Wallet: Useful for adding any wallet to track the balance/transactions (only the public wallet address is required).

Choose "Create a new Wallet" from the menu.

To create your wallet, first provide a wallet name. This information is not persistent and is only needed to identify your wallet if you have multiple wallets stored later on.

After choosing a wallet name, click the button to continue.

You will now see a warning pop-up mentioning the mnemonic/seed phrase. This is critical information, and you should store it only in a safe place, without access by others.

After securely storing your 12-word seed phrase, continue to the next step.

For security reasons, you will be asked to repeat the mnemonic/seed phrase. Click the words in the correct order to proceed.

As the last step before using your created wallet, set up a Security PIN. This acts as an additional way to secure access to your wallet.

An optional feature is to enable 'bio-metric unlock,' which allows you to unlock the app securely with your fingerprint or face ID. You can accept it.

After creating your wallet, you will see many assets/tokens, each with its own wallet address. The wallet in the Nova-Wallet acts like a collection of multiple wallets.

To find the wallet address of your Bittensor wallet, click on the "magnifying-glass" icon and type in "TAO."

You will then see the wallet address at the top and a QR code that holds the wallet address as information. This allows others to quickly scan it and send you TAO tokens.

The wallet address is a unique identifier for your Bittensor wallet, typically consisting of a long string of characters. It is used to receive TAO tokens from others and can be shared publicly without compromising the security of your wallet.

Congratulations! You have successfully created a Mobile-Wallet using the "Nova Wallet"-App.

To reduce any risks through already installed apps its best to factory-reset the device dedicated to your wallet. From now on I will refer to it as the 'vault smartphone'.

Go to the 'Play Store' or 'App Store' and search for "Polkadot Vault".

After finding the correct app (as shown above), install it. Then, you can begin creating your hardware wallet.

Once the app is opened you will be asked to accept the 'Terms of Service' and the 'Privacy Policy'. The first thing you have to set up will be the so called 'Air-Gap Mode', this refers to your device being completely offline and disconnected from the network.

If you don't have a screen-lock set up, a prompt will pop up asking you to set it up (e.g. passcode, pattern, fingerprint etc.).

Should you already have one like me in this scenario, it will ask you unlock the app using the set up screen-lock.

Next you will be asked to create a key set, in there we will store our cold-key (our wallet). Select the "Add Key Set" option.

Following that you have to give it a name, it could be everything from 'First Wallet' to 'Hardware Wallet'.

Now you will be shown the mnemonic/seed phrase of your wallet, its a list of 24-words in a specific order. This is a critical information and needs to be stored in a safe place.

After safely storing your mnemonic/seed phrase, you will be prompted to confirm being aware of the need to write down your seed phrase and that in case of losing this information your wallet will be lost forever.

In the following screen you can deselect all options and simply continue. You will be asked, if you are sure to continue with an empty key set. That's fully okay as we need to add the Bittensor network first.

To get the above QR code, you can visit the following website "Metadata Novasama". In the "Chain Stats"-Tab you will find the information about the Bittensor Network, but all we need is the QR code.

In your Polkadot Vault, click on the "QR-code" icon on the bottom and scan the QR code from the page.

Once scanned you can approve the network, and it will be added to the app. It may be that the app will ask you, if you want to add keys to your key-set, but first we need to update your metadata, so ignore it for now.

While staying on the same website click on the "Metadata"-Tab and the QR-code should change, instead of being a static QR-code it will play a sequence of multiple QR-codes, which store the newest metadata of the network.

After all QR-codes from the sequence got scanned, you will be able to approve the updated metadata.

Being back on the 'home'-page of your vault. Click on the "Create Derived Key"-Button. With this option we will create our cold-key.

As marked in the image above, select the "Node-subtensor" network and click the "Create Key"-Button. You can skip the rest and go directly to the "Bonus"-Step.

"Add Custom Derivation Path" instead of "Create Key" - Optional (much more secure, but adds complexity):

The derivation path is another critical information and should be stored safely, as without it you will not be able to back up your created cold-key.

The naming convention of the derivation path is as follow:

Derivation Path: //network_name//account_index///password

• //node-subtensor: This part is the network identifier.
• //0: This part represents the account index. In this case, "0" indicates that it is the first account derived from the root seed for the "node-subtensor" network.
• ///******: The value after the triple slash (///) is the password or passphrase used for password-based key derivation.

Now that you have set up your wallet, you still need to figure out how to use it on your main phone or desktop.

Using on your Desktop (Webcam required):

To use the wallet on your desktop you need to download the 'Polkadot.js-Extension' (available on either Chrome Extensions or Firefox).

On the extension, you need to go to the "Settings" and enable "Allow QR Camera Access", like in the image below.

Now you can add your wallet to the extension. Click on the "+"-icon and select "Attach external QR-signer account". This will enable your webcam, you need to go to the 'Polkadot Vault' and click on your key, following that a QR-code will be shown, this should be scanned using the extension on your device.

After successfully adding the wallet to the extension you will be able to go to "Tensor Wallet" and manage your funds from there. On any transaction you will need to scan the QR-code using your vault smartphone and then the QR-code of your wallet using the extension. If you created a custom derived key, you will additionally be prompted to enter your derivation path password.

Using on your Phone (not the Vault Smartphone):

You can download the 'Nova Wallet' as explained in the 'Mobile-Wallet'-Section, instead of creating a new wallet you should select "Connect Hardware Wallet", this will prompt you to again scan the QR-code of your key on the vault smartphone. After that your wallet will be added to Nova Wallet, and can be managed from there.

Congratulations, you have successfully created a cold-storage hardware wallet using your vault smartphone. From now on you can use your wallet on either PC or Mobile.